The Classic Tokusatsu Collection (Shout)

[lhb412]

A new box set of classic Toei films exclusive to Shout's online store! Includes...

Prince of Space
Invasion of the Neptune Men
Watari the Ninja Boy
Golden Ninja (aka Golden Bat)
Dragon Showdown (aka The Magic Serpent)
Ninja Scope
Terror Beneath the Sea

https://shoutfactory.com/products/classic-tokusatsu-collection-exclusive-poster?variant=40477947166854

These popped up on their Tokushoutsu streaming outfit a week ago, and along with their announcement that they're acquiring more Kamen Rider this shows that Shout is still in the tokusatsu game! I had my doubts after a year of radio silence, but I'm happy to be wrong. I've been really wanting to see magic Serpent and Golden Bat for a good while (seen most of Serpent on a pitifully low-res YouTube rip ages ago), but watching a bit if Watari a few days ago? Wow! Can't wait to own a copy of that wild film! Shame there's no extras, but at roughly $10 a film I can't complain.

[Benjamin Haines]

Damn, it's a limited edition of just 2,500 units and there are already only 63 left in stock? I'm about to miss out on this set. I hope they decide to print more but at least I can stream these movies on TokuSHOUTsu. I've never seen any of them before!

[lhb412]

That ticker is just for the first 600 copies w/poster. Once they're gone then the counter will reset for the remaining 1,900.

[Benjamin Haines]

That page says "this product is unavailable" now, and there isn't a separate listing for a posterless version on Shout's website. Are you sure they didn't sell out of all 2,500 yesterday? I hope they see the level of consumer demand and print more units.

[lhb412]

Back up without poster:

https://shoutfactory.com/products/classic-tokusatsu-collection?variant=40477947166854

I should've mentioned how they're often delisted for a bit after the poster sells out! Same thing has happened with the kung fu sets Shout's offered in the last few years.

This thing is selling pretty well. Honestly, I feel that there's now enough tokusatsu fans in the US that practically anything, popular or obscure, is liable to be released here, and the biggest roadblock to potential release will be licensing issues.

[Benjamin Haines]

^ I agree, which is why it's frustrating when new tokusatsu releases like this are so limited in quantity! It's good that Shout's new set hasn't sold out yet but I still won't be able to get this unless it's in stock two weeks from now, and it looks like they've already sold more than 150 units since that new listing was posted. I hope they'll at least give it a second printing.

[lhb412]

Well, not only preordered - but added $30 to my order so I'd qualify for an extra, free blu-ray! Choose de Palma's Carrie from their selection of freebies for orders $100 and over.

[lhb412]

My copy arrived pretty quick! Just checking the discs... Shout listed no extras, but most of the movies have HD transfers of their original trailers.

[Benjamin Haines]

I was able to get this after all. What's up with the first 600 units selling out within a day while the remaining 1,900 units still haven't sold out six weeks later? Did 600 people just urgently want the poster?

I started by watching Golden Bat (Ogon Batto, 黄金バット, 1966), which is inexplicably subtitled as Golden Ninja on this set's packaging and in every instance of the movie's subtitles, even though everyone in the spoken dialogue and in the film's theme song is audibly saying batto (バット), which is clearly just a Japanese pronunciation of the English word bat, and not the Japanese word ninja. This is a fun little black-and-white B-movie based on a a superhero created in 1930 for Japanese paper theater. The score is good and it has a blazing fast pace reminiscent of modern Hollywood blockbusters. The story about the team of scientists awakening the ancient hero Golden Bat to stop the evil alien conqueror Nazo feels like a precursor to Toei's various superhero shows of the 1970s. If this movie had an English dub it would be a perfect fit for Mystery Science Theater 3000. One of Nazo's goons is a guy named Keloid with scars on his face that look like radiation burns, so I'm surprised that Toei hasn't yet pulled this movie from circulation in the same vein as Toho did with Prophecies of Nostradamus or TPC with UltraSeven episode 12.

[lhb412]

^ 'Golden Ninja' is apparently an official Toei thing that the licensor has to adhere to. Weird, huh? As you say, it feels like a missing evolutionary link between stuff like Prince of Space and the '70s Ishinomori shows.

It certainly would've fit with the two other B&W Toei hero pictures featured on MST3K, but Golden Bat feels quite a bit grander in its madness. I feel it would play a bit more like when MST3K did those Russian fantasy films, where they sort of react to the movie instead of build up their alternate, parody movie via dialog (which is what they had to do when the movies were more basic, or had all these empty spaces).